


if you love something

by Fatale (femme)



Series: post episode ficlets [5]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M, post episode season 3 episode10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 04:32:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14729996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: Alec can't help the thought that's been bugging him, making him uneasy in the quiet hours jammed between dusk and dawn, some half-formed idea that's keeping him awake while his arm throbs, hot and aching, curled up miserably into his chest as he listens to Magnus toss and turn.





	if you love something

**Author's Note:**

> if you love something--well, you know the rest.
> 
>  

 

   
Izzy stops by to check on Magnus and Alec early in the morning, which Alec appreciates, really, but there's not a lot she can do. Alec's arm still aches, the newly-knit bones protesting with every moment, but he'll be fine. He's had so much worse.

But Magnus, no one can do anything to help him, and Alec feels like he's politely inquired, gently threatened, and then resorting to bribing the entire Shadowworld. No one has any answers -- warlocks giving up their magic just isn't a thing that happens. Aside from that, in some horrible part of his brain, Alec can't help the thought that's been bugging him, making him uneasy in the quiet hours jammed between dusk and dawn, some half-formed idea that's keeping him awake while his arm throbs, hot and aching, curled up miserably into his chest as he listens to Magnus toss and turn.

They make their way to the kitchen doorway, watching Magnus fiddle with the coffeemaker for a few seconds. He's never made it the mundane way.

"Sure seems a shame now that he's got one lifetime, apparently, he's going to spend it all learning how to make coffee," Izzy says absently.

That's when the thought solidifies for Alec, takes shape into something terrifying and real. It is one thing, Alec thinks, to spend a small fraction of your life with a Shadowhunter of no special skill except organization, no renown other than the infamous kind where you jilt your fiancee at the altar for another man, but it's a whole different thing to spend the entirety of your mundane life with them.

Alec already couldn't believe his luck that Magnus fell in love with him. This is pushing it.

"I should probably help him," Alec mumbles and goes over to Magnus, takes out about half the coffee grounds -- it would have been terrible coffee, but Alec would have drank it anyway -- and turns the coffeemaker on.

"Thank you, Alexander," Magnus says softly. It's terrible, how lost he seems. His eyeliner is smudged, his hair loose and soft around his face.

Alec keeps trying to remind himself that he didn't just give up his magic for Jace -- he did it to save the Downworld. Unchecked, Lilith was far too dangerous; she would have brought back Sebastian and no one would have been safe.

But still, Alec feels a little sick when he sees Magnus gesture at the bed, then stare at it, confused, for a full thirty seconds when nothing happens.  
 

\---  
 

Magnus stops by the Institute to see Alec, but there's no time. Everyone's running around, following up on some lead, walking with irritatingly purposeful long strides like only Shadowhunters seem to manage.

"It's hard to watch them run into danger, knowing we can't help them, isn't it?" Maryse says, twisting her gold pendant anxiously, standing on the fringes with Magnus.

Her hair is down, touching her shoulders. She looks lovely, young, and nothing like the harsh woman she used to be. Everything about her is softer, and Magnus self-consciously touches his own hair. He tried to get the spikes right, but without magic, it's a lot harder. He had to use a terrifying amount of product. Magnus made up for it by wearing his most button-y outfit, hoping the shine would deflect from the fact that he's so tired, he can barely stand. Inside, where the low thrum of welcoming magic once raced through his veins, is a great hollowness, New York with totally empty streets, his spirit constantly reaching out for something that's no longer there.

His body feels so heavy.

"I know I'm not--useful any longer. Not the way I was before." Magnus looks up, eyes hard and determined. "But I can still help. I've still got centuries of knowledge," he falters. "I can help."

"Of course you can," Maryse says, touching his arm lightly. "I wanted to thank you again."

"For loving your son?"

"For loving the world," she says.  
 

\---  
 

Alec said he wanted to talk later when he got done with his work before he rushed off to do something no doubt terribly important and probably much too dangerous for Magnus in his current state.

That Alexander loves him, he has no doubt. Alec has made that clear again and again. But their lives no longer mesh, and he's not who Alec bargained for when Magnus promised him the world. Alec wouldn't leave him; he's much too honorable for that, but he can pull away, spend longer and longer at the Institute, avoiding the home Magnus never even made clear belonged to him, too.

Left at odds, he goes to the Hunter's Moon. It seems like the kind of conversation he ought to be drunk for, so best to get started now.

Maia, who got back in town a couple of days ago, slides a drink across the counter. "On the house," she says. He looks up, expecting to see pity on her face. Instead, she nods at him once, deep and respectful, before walking off to take care of customers at the other end of the bar.

He looks all around him, patrons nodding at him, lifting their drinks in silent salute. Of course, they heard about him; Downworlders are such terrible gossips.

Magnus nods back before leaving, unnerved. He has to get a ride home and tries not to wince at the indignity of standing curbside, waiting for an Uber.  
 

\---  
 

At the apartment, Magnus is unpacking the Chinese takeout Alec picked up on his way home, busy avoiding Alec's direct gaze. No one quite does eye contact like Alec. He doesn't do it angrily or confrontationally, just searching for something Magnus would rather stay hidden.

"We're going to have to ask Lorenzo Rey to strengthen the wards at the Institute." Alec is cringing while saying it as if it should hurt Magnus to have it said out loud. And it doesn't hurt, but it does piss him off a little. Lorenzo, the fucking slimy coward, gets to help, gets to be useful, while Magnus unpacks styrofoam containers and fucks up his eyeliner.

"Are you mad?" Alec asks hesitantly. "Because I can tell him no. I don't want him around me any more than he has to be, but the wards are always maintained by the High Warlock and I have to pick my battles with the Clave now."

Honestly? He's fucking furious, but he wants Alec safe above all, so he says, "Of course not. It's just been a long day."

"Mom said she talked to you earlier."

"Oh, yeah?"

"You don't have to stay," Alec says suddenly. "I know you only have one lifetime now, and --"

"What?" Magnus asks.

Alec looks at him intently, unhesitatingly devaluing himself. “I’ve thought about it a lot and I know this wasn’t what you had in mind when we got together.”

"Alexander,“ Magnus says sadly. “I gave up my magic for you.” He thought Alec _understood_.

"That's not true."

He’s right; it isn’t strictly true, because he did it for the Downworld, of course he did. Just because you stop being the High Warlock doesn't mean the responsibility ever leaves you. It's either in your bones or it isn't.

But the harsh reality is he did it fast and without any real hesitation or question -- and that was entirely because of Alec. Because Alec needs Jace, because Alec would never be safe in a world with Lilith in it, because he couldn't live out an existence without Alec when he had a possible way to save him. But it's why the praise from the Downworld doesn't sit well with him. It was altruistic, noble, and totally self-serving. All things are, really. Doesn’t make them any less heroic.

"I didn't ask you to, did I?" Alec asks hesitantly, face white. "I didn't pressure you?"

“You didn't have to," Magnus says, stepping close to touch his face and tell him fiercely, "I would do it all over again for you. Just for you." It's not reasonable, but love never is.

Alec closes his eyes, pressing his cheek into Magnus’ hand.

"You're stuck with me," Magnus proclaims, not missing the heartbreaking naked relief on Alec's face. Oh, Jesus. _Alec_. Even when confronted with the evidence, time and again, he's always surprised by how little Alec seems to think of himself.

Alec reaches up to hold his hand in place as if without his anchoring weight, Magnus would leave. As if he ever could.

Magnus is always shocked by the unsteady march of time, the way it shifts, faster through the good times and slower through the bad, but always forward. He's watching the boyishness melt from Alec's shoulders, something steely and strong emerging in the set of Alec's jaw. He's seeing Alec unfurl into an incredible man, all under the massive weight of responsibility and trial and the strength of Magnus' love. Hundreds of years never prepared him for this, for Alec.

Magnus clears his throat. "We should eat before it gets cold. I can't just snap my fingers and warm the food up anymore."

He sees the shadow of sadness dart across Alec's face, but it'll pass. It always does, so long as they stick together. Time speeds up, flying by, like a beautiful dream just out of reach in the morning. It's how he knows giving up his magic was worth it; it's how he knows these are the moments to savor, and he doesn't have any less of them because his time is finite now.

Magnus goes to the pantry and reaches up towards the top shelf, fingertips brushing against the jar of sweet and sour sauce because he refuses to use anything that comes in plastic packets. Oh, fuck it all, if he has to get out his step ladder for this, he is officially done for the day. He's going to bed and waking up next year when conditions have improved.

Alec reaches up and pulls the jar down for him, those extra couple of inches making all the difference. And don't they always, Magnus thinks a little ironically and has to laugh.

"My savior," Magnus says dryly, taking the pre-offered jar from Alec.

Alec kisses him lightly on the mouth, pulls back and says, entirely too sincerely, "No, you're mine, Magnus Bane."

Oh, _shit_ , he would say the perfect thing. Magnus feels the small knot of tension in his chest untangle and dissipate like it was never there at all, the worry fading away in the absolute sincere warmth of Alec's belief. It's not such a bad thing to be anchored. If Alec has so much faith in him, why can't he?

There'll be hell to pay for this small pocket of peace later, there always is, but that's a problem for another day.

Overcome, Magnus surges up to kiss Alec again, lips dry and soft beneath his, as he melts into the weight of the moment and holds on.

 


End file.
